TE KUITI 2021
Te Kuiti was the venue for this year’s V.K Rally, situated on the northern edge of the King Country, and is better known as a quiet farming and rugby community, but which also sports a small airfield just outside of town. However, they were soon to be awakened with the sound of our tow plane and to look up to a sky full of sailplanes as everyone started to explore this new and somewhat rolling landscape.
Te Kuiti going back in time also had their own gliding club in the very early 1960’s using a Schneider Kookaburra two seat trainer and a winch to launch with. Piano wire and a limited runway length obviously did not make for high launches and for various reasons the club unfortunately disbanded after only a few short years. Te Kuiti airfield is also the home of the Waitamo Aero club which was founded some 80 years ago. Some private aircraft and several top dressing aircraft operate from here. The iconic club house dates back to the horse racing days of the 1930s and the building’s historical significance is documented in the New Zealand National Archives. The aero club made us most welcome and we were able to arrange the use of their club house as our ‘base camp’.
Some liked to be part of the great outdoors of course, whilst other members preferred the ambience and structured accommodation regime of a holiday park or motel.
The weather leading up to this week was superb with the Matamata Competitions having possibly the best run of particularly good country conditions possibly for the whole season.
The big question was, could it, would it, last another fifteen days to cover the seven days of the rally as well? As it turned out it did and we flew five days out of the seven allocated with only a couple of days of light rain. This really gave everyone a good rest as the days had been reaching 31 degrees Celsius for most of the week.
As per our other rallies operating from other ‘independent‘ sites we once again used Jim Lyver’s Fox Bat LSA (Light Sport Aircraft) ZK-
Also amongst the mix were a H301 Open Libelle, several PW5s, a Glasflugel Mosquito, several Ka6e’s an ASW20, Ka6cr, 201b Libelle, TeST self-
There were a couple of land-
Vintage Kiwi Rallies are all about everyone enjoying their own flying environment and a good number did just that, also enjoying the local airspace as well, and what that also had to offer. A couple of members apparently clocked up over 11 and 15 hrs respectively. All in all a lot of very good flying was achieved overall.
In the 1930’s Te Kuiti Airfield was at one time an active racecourse. One could still imagine the aero club’s rather grand clubhouse as it was ‘in its’ day‘ -
